Americans inherit from our ancestors a glorious tradition of freedom and resistance to oppression. Our country has long been admired by the rest of the world for her great example of liberty and prosperity—a light shining in the darkness of tyranny.
But many Americans today are frustrated. The political choices they are offered give them no real choice at all. For all their talk of "change," neither major political party as presently constituted challenges the status quo in any serious way. Neither treats the Constitution with anything but contempt. Neither offers any kind of change in monetary policy. Neither wants to make the reductions in government that our crushing debt burden demands. Neither talks about bringing American troops home not just from Iraq but from around the world. Our country is going bankrupt, and none of these sensible proposals are even on the table.
This destructive bipartisan consensus has suffocated American political life for many years. Anyone who tries to ask fundamental questions instead of cosmetic ones is ridiculed or ignored.
That is why the Campaign for Liberty was established: to highlight the neglected but common-sense principles we champion and reinsert them into the American political conversation.
The U.S. Constitution is at the heart of what the Campaign for Liberty stands for, since the very least we can demand of our government is fidelity to its own governing document. Claims that our Constitution was meant to be a "living document" that judges may interpret as they please are fraudulent, incompatible with republican government, and without foundation in the constitutional text or the thinking of the Framers. Thomas Jefferson spoke of binding our rulers down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution, and we are proud to follow in his distinguished lineage.
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/about.php
...they did not listen...they did not know how...perhaps they'll listen now?
An Idea whose Time has Come cannot be stopped by any Army or any Government. [youtube]
Another Ron Paul website pushing Ron Paul's views in hopes of getting Ron Paul or his clone to run in 2012 and this time somehow not getting those views overwhelmingly rejected by the party and American people again. Once again the Libertarians were defeated by another 3rd party... they haven't been able to beat other 3rd parties or independent candidates for twenty years... when Ron Paul ran and lost with 0.5% of the vote. Flashfoward 20 years later and he was only able to muster support in the single digits in the primary of the party that he claims to have sole claim to defining for them in spite of great fundraising and generally some of the most enthusiastic supporters.
For all their good ideas they can't accept the fact that their conspiratorial views are so full of hyperbole that few take them seriously. And for all their good ideas they can't accept the inherent absurdity of all of their atrocious ideas that depend on arguments that have no basis in the Constitution, but rather in a belief that policies acceptable for our nation in the 18th century are adequate or appropriate for the 21st.
No matter how justified one feels in attempting to morph the Republican party into the Libertarian party... they should probably try to figure out why the Libertarian party is so overwhelmingly rejected by the American public that they can't even beat other 3rd party candidates, let alone why with all their enthusiasm the Republicans rejected their desire to move the party in the direction of endless epic fails.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Endless Epic? Hyperbole? Epic proportions and endless bailouts seems more likely.
Should we trust those who presided over the crash or those who predicted it as a natural consequence of
financial bubbles according to the principles of Austrian Economics? (Austrian...what?)
When will the "dead cat bounce" that looks like support at about 8200 stop, and the "true bottom" be explored?
There is probably true support at about 5000-6000 but no one can know for sure, but it does look like Paulson is building a minibubble due to pop soon.
Now your new socialist masters will blame all these financial ills on the lack of regulations and failure to tax sufficiently...
They can and will correct that quickly enough... And they have an excuse..."No one could have fixed W's mess."
Stopping Clinton's war --> W's war ---> Obama's war is out of the question.
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It is always a question whether libertarians should find their natural home in the GOP and try to return the GOP to its libertarian roots. It would be simple enough to build a 3rd party, except that many states like Illinois have ballot access laws that are effective hurdles. Republican and Democrat parties ("established parties") can simply nominate candidates, while 3rd party candidate ballot access requires thousands and thousands of signatures. That is reality.
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For anyone interested---
There is an education section at the C4L website http://www.campaignforliberty.com/education.php
RON PAUL!!4!!!!111
2012 FTW!!!1!!!!!111!
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Anon, what would you know about logic and facts, would you like to try to apply some and respond to my comment maybe? - Run4cvrlib on 2008-10-16 @ 11:00pm
RK... I agree with you on ballot access issues *somewhat*... but that still doesn't get the LP off the hook for failing to beat other 3rd parties and indy candidates. And of course Libertarians, like Paul, running on the GOP ballot don't have the 3rd party excuse. I understand you dislike the current power brokers and what they're doing... but kicking this dead horse again will just lead to yet another epic fail. Sorry.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Glock, my point was and is, and I think it is clear, is that the Campaign for Liberty does have some useful materials for those interested in educating themselves and improving their understanding. Those willing or interested are bade come to the water. Those who are not can watch TV or play the Wii, etc.
You can misconstrue it by saying that the both libertarian message and the RonPaul version are unpopular or at least non-mainstream.
Popularity is fickle. Certainly these ideas are not mainstream, otherwise we wouldnt be in this mess, would we?
Being out of the mainstream is no measure of lack of truth.
"the highest good is like water. it nourishes everything without striving. it flows in places that are rejected by the masses of men,
and therefore is similar to the Tao."
I think the LP has been tainted by some of the whackos that advocate for insane levels of limited government (e.g., free-market fire departments). It's pretty easy to write off a party/political view once you hear ridiculous ideas like that.
TP... it's the conspiracy theorists that drive me up the wall. Perhaps it's because they're typically the ones I interact with on the interwebs... the subtle and not-so-subtle pandering by many LP candidates and of course Paul to the conspiracy loonies just makes voters smile and back away slowly.
Of course I'm equally annoyed by those that try to claim that our 18th century foreign policy was somehow set in stone forever, regardless of how drastically our economy has grown and become dependent on markets beyond our borders... not to mention the old geographical barriers to both trade and military threats becoming less and less relevant with modern technology.
Behind it there seems to be the incorrect assumption that the old ways would have somehow been universally applicable when it was our physical isolation and actual weakness that made it the only feasible approach for long term security at the time, and we were in a unique position to pull it off. It was no more universal then, as it is now... only the oceans don't play the same role they did then, and our economy outgrew our domestic markets long before anyone here was born. Our unique situation that would allow such a policy faded away long ago, as did the factors that once made it not only wise but necessary. Old quotes of the founders aside, it was an area left wide open in the Constitution, not restricted to the needs of their time.
Of course that's still leaps and bounds above the mentality of some Libertarians who speak fondly of the Articles of Confederation being a more effective form of central gov't. I'd rather talk to the ones that think the moon landings were faked... at least they're funny, albeit in a sad way.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
People like Glock dont hate us without a cause. They hate us for being right.
You can read Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson online here
Lots more stuff here.
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Some Red Meat for my friend Glock:
Manipulating the Markets---The PPT
-begin quote
- end quote
RK... I yield to your mastery of avoiding my points and continuing to argue with strawmen, or in this case arguing on completely different subjects for no apparent reason, using lots of words that aren't your own to do so, and apparently not having read or comprehended what you posted to realize it has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.. You're doing a fine job of representing your party... and I mean that truly, without hatred or animosity. Just a very sly grin.
Have fun. I'll leave you to your devices.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
O come on now Mr. Glock. You mentioned conspiracy theory. I offer you an easy target (The PPT) and you back away?
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My original premise was and is that the Campaign for Liberty (C4L) has a lot of educational and support materials for those interested in looking at our political, economic, and social issues from the standpoint of fundamentals. Austrian economics has been predicting the bubbles bursting and the bigger holocaust of personal freedoms to come. I am so surprised that you sitting there with your 2nd amendment rights under attack and the other 9 threatened, lash out at us, your brothers in arms and cast aspersions on us being loonies. You followed that with an attack on the libertarian party and presidential elections and unfortunately missed the whole point.
You guys missed it big on McCain and on foreign policy especially. The graceful thing we will let you do is say times have changed and it is time to go back to a true Republican foreign policy, which just happens to be that same foreign policy that is supported by the tenets of libertarian thought.
For all their talk of "change," neither major political party as presently constituted challenges the status quo in any serious way. Neither treats the Constitution with anything but contempt. Neither offers any kind of change in monetary policy. Neither wants to make the reductions in government that our crushing debt burden demands. Neither talks about bringing American troops home not just from Iraq but from around the world.
Yes, for all of the candidates' talk about change, you are right. Neither party is really going to make radical change - and I would say that the American don't really want that much change anyway, otherwise the Libertarians, Greens, etc. would have done better. There is a basic consensus in America that the current monetary policy is more or less correct. This is especially the case if your alternative is a gold standard. Gold is just a shiny metal that has "value" because someone says that it does, the same as a bit of paper with green ink on it. Additionally, there's a basic consensus that America needs to be engaged in the world, with troops in friendly countries (but perhaps not fighting two wars at the same time). Your "true Republican foreign policy" was sunk by a Japanese dive bomber in 1941, and if it comes back, it will only drive the GOP's numbers closer to the Libertarians', not the other way around.
Most people in America don't want their politicians to remake the entire economic system or abrogate all of our alliances - the "change" that they want is a different guy doing things a little differently. They have an instinctive fear of "big ideas." When Ron Paul's libertarian ideology lead him to say that the Civil War was wrong because slavery would have eventually worked itself out, people smelled crazy on him and fled to other candidates - the market had spoken.
As for the informal group meant to keep the market from collapsing, am I supposed to have it out for the people that keep my 401k from going down the toilet? We have always had groups of bankers that would step in and buy shares to keep the market from plunging - before they were all self-appointed and met in J.P. Morgan's office, now they include govt officials and meet in Ben Bernanke's office. So what? The market tanked in 1987 worse than 1929, but there was no recession, while in the early 1990s companies' stock would get a big bounce whenever they laid off employees - hardly a sign of economic health. Stock market ≠ economy.
D-M
Your perspective is interesting and it might indeed be a true reflection of how some Americans perceive and recall history, despite many gaps and flaws in your historical account. It is likely the popular misconceptions about the "Civil War" that lead to negative responses to expositions of the truth about that event. Similar interplay misconception and deception comprises the fabric that supports the unsustainable foreign policy of continual war and policing of the world.
All of the "service" you get in the maintenance of your 197.512384k comes at a huge cost to the citizenry, but our main concern is that the system is not sustainable in its present form and large negative events are bound to occur, and we are presently on the doorstep of those events. I believe you when you say, "in so many words", that most Americans are sheep and they just want to keep their heads down and continue grazing, only "dimly aware of a certain unease in the air".
Stock market ≠ economy.
It's true as written, but economy = f(Stock market).
I have 3 questions for you, D-M. --- What do you think about the 1) Patriot Act? About 2) FISA? About 3) the Bailout(s)?
It is likely the popular misconceptions about the "Civil War" that lead to negative responses to expositions of the truth about that event.
Exactly. The fact that you need to appeal to our abilities to re-imagine the "Civil War" (nice scare quotes, dude), and rethink our alleged misconceptions about it, just goes to show why a candidate should never, ever, ever bring this up on the campaign trail. Well, unless he was more interested in getting his ideas out rather than winning, which probably describes Ron Paul fairly well. Still, my point remains - Americans don't want a full revision of history in the middle of a presidential campaign so that they can re-argue 150 year old events, nor is Meet the Press to venue to have that happen anyway. You aren't going to turn everyone into Big Idea libertarians in ten minutes.
I have 3 questions for you, D-M. --- What do you think about the 1) Patriot Act? About 2) FISA? About 3) the Bailout(s)?
1. Patriot Act - rushed through and not well thought out, but the hyperventilating about library records by some doesn't really impress me that much. On the whole, I'm ok with this, although a few revisions are probably in order.
2. FISA - if you mean the FISA court set up from the 1970s, it's a disaster - the FBI, a law enforcement body, shouldn't be in the anti-terror business anyway, and probably not even in the counter-espionage business. Acts of war shouldn't be litigated in a court of law. If a crisis is also an opportunity, we wasted a perfectly good crisis/opportunity after 9/11 to remake our intelligence agencies into organizations that would work.
If by FISA you mean the wire-tapping of Americans calling Pakistan and places like that, I'm just fine with that. During the cold war there was the expectation that every call that went to Eastern Europe (provided one could actually connect the call) would be listened in on by the NSA and the KGB, and that every letter going back and forth would be read too. So now we're supposed to consider calls to Cave 43, Khyber Pass Way, Waziristan to not be something that the government would not have a legitimate interest in?
3. Bailout - well, it's a little early to tell, but it doesn't look like it's going well. That said, however, I think that I may reflect what many Americans are thinking - that I'm tired of debating whether we need more government or less government, and I just want competant government. I don't think that it's too much to ask for a government that can respond to a hurricane faster than CNN, or that can actually think through an invasion past the tearing down the statues phase, or that would perhaps look at our 21st century finance system and our 1930s regulatory system and think "hey, that could use an update." It would be nice if Paulson can pull this one off, but I'm not filled with confidence - everything that he's proposed has been to head off worse, until worse actually happens, and then he goes back to the well. But if the question is: do I have an ideological belief that would make me oppose this in every instance - heck no.
Thanks for sharing your views DM. We have differing views on the size and scope of government. You would like the government to provide some level of service and provide it competently which seems reasonable. I dont want anything more than the absolute basics from government and I believe that the government has what we used to call the "reverse Midas touch" on the things that it messes with.
I view the patriot act and FISA to be incredible unconstitutional incursions into our private lives, and I want to them to go away and leave the citizens alone.
Its becoming more and more clear that the people were lied to about the bailout. I mean even some who believed them at first are starting to notice the lies. They will be back to the well again and again and again until the well goes dry. They completely ignored the citizen protests on the last vote, and the political machines was able to put those who supported the bailout back into office.
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Here's RP talking about the War for Southern Independence back last winter. He didnt bring it up. The media asked him the question, perhaps baiting him. But being a man of principle above all, he answered their questions accurately. Of course as you say, that display of honesty frightened the sheep but it surely strengthened the supporters tremendously.
<
War of Southern Independence? Uh, don't you mean the War of Southern Treachery and America Hating? And you will note in the intro to the video that you posted, they clearly said that they were going to ask RP about some comments that he made on Meet the Press. There was no "baiting" or ambush journalism - you can't say something as strange as RP did on national television and expect it to go unchallenged.
In the Morning Joe interview, Ron Paul refers to a book by Thomas DiLorenzo. Below, DiLorenzo reviews a book on Lincoln written by a black man, Lerone Bennett, Jr. I think it's interesting what this author has to say. Keeping both eyes open helps depth perception immeasurably. We have all been exposed to the Lincoln as Legend doctrine. A dose of perspective might do us all some good...
An African-American Icon Speaks Truth to the Lincoln Cult. by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
~ Lerone Bennett, Jr.,
Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, p. 114
The gigantic collection of myths, lies, and distortions that comprise The Legend of Abraham Lincoln is the ideological cornerstone of the American warfare/welfare state. It has been invoked for generations to make the argument that if the policies of the U.S. government are not "the will of God," then at least they are the will of "Father Abraham." Moreover, this legend – this false history of America – did not arise spontaneously. It was invented and nurtured by an intergenerational army of court historians who, as Murray Rothbard once said, are absolutely indispensable to any government empire. All states, said Rothbard, depend for their existence on a series of myths about their benevolence, heroism, greatness, or even divinity.
Since very few Americans have spent much time educating themselves about Lincoln and nineteenth-century American history (much of which has been falsified anyway), it is easy for members of what I call the Lincoln Cult to dismiss all literary criticisms of Lincoln as the work of "neo-Confederates," their code-word for "defenders of slavery" (as though anyone in America today would defend slavery), or "racist." Although they label themselves "Lincoln scholars," the last thing they want is honest scholarship when it comes to the subject of Lincoln and his war.
Read more... (I know you're just dying to read more...)
Who said anything about Lincoln? I'm sure that the hero worship of him and the rest of the pantheon of American heroes is sometimes over the top. And I don't think that they are beyond historical criticism - after all, when I was a kid, Andrew Jackson was a bona fide American hero, now he is seen by many historians as a bloodthirsty criminal (the pendulum may have swung too far on that one). Additionally, in the past few years, many historians have began questioning our assumptions about FDR and the New Deal. I'm sure that they'll get around to Lincoln sooner or later.
Again, just to restate my point - what in the world was Ron Paul thinking about, raising these questions on Meet the Press? Hasn't he seen enough people run for president (and run himself ) to know how to do it correctly, if not well? I'm sure he knew that he had no chance of winning, but he could have at least pretended like he wanted to win. He made it sound like the libertarians have a foreign policy from 1930, a monetary policy from 1880, and a slavery policy (!!!) from 1850. Not exactly the candidate of tomorrow.
Now, DM, if you had listened to the video carefully, you would have noticed that Dr. Paul suggested that the issue of slavery should have been subject to the Declaration made in July of 1776, and you would have heard the discussion about Lincoln as well, but I rather think you are trying to be funny and clever rather than accurate here.
As regarding monetary policy, the 4 candidates for the major 3rd parties (Nader, Baldwin, McKinney, and Barr) did in one accord call for an investigation of the Federal Reserve, and bloomberg.com is suing the Fed regarding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) issues arising from the activities of the Federal Reserve. A coordinated national protest at each of the 30 branches of the Federal Reserve is scheduled for 22 Nov 08. The Dow (not the Dao/Tao) closed at about 8200 today. The rate of expansion of one key measure the money supply from September2008 to November 2008 was almost 800% on an annualized basis. [What percent inflation does that translate to?] I would have to say that these concerns about the FED and the monetary policy are not 1880 but are ultra-current and an important part of your future, sir.
Yeah this disagreement on a central bank and monetary policy is not 1880... it dates back, as Paul rightly notes, back to the Hamiltonians who supposedly subverted the constitution that having one to regulate currency as some sort of implied power was on par with treason! The Marshall Court pretty well squarshed that notion for the rest of our history, but some still consider the losing end of that debate, mainly anti-federalists who quite frankly lost long before, to be "the future" of our economy.
The Ron Paulians are basically the anti-federalists of our time. Many of the arguments are eerily familiar... and sometimes they're exactly the same. The most dubious ones read like a laundry list of the losing side of the aforementioned court, setting them against roughly 200 years of Supreme Court precedent upholding the federalist victories in gaining ratification of their Constitution over the prior Articles of Confederation. It leads to the conundrum of those most vocal about their claim to being the most pure Constitutionalists deriving a great many of their arguments from the early opponents to it.
The average voter may not be entirely concerned with the details of their hypocrisy, as they certainly seem to ignore hypocrisy in the major parties as well (or at least rationalize it well). The average voter does, however, seem to get the impression that they're unforgivably backwards on one or more issues, and when the LP, its candidates, or adherents to their views such as Paul espouse such long dismissed views as 'the future' using the arguments of the losing side of everything from the Constitutional ratifications to the court cases that affirmed the stronger federal gov't over the previous Articles of Confederation, to the Confederacy itself... they seem to get plenty of confirmation, regardless of how much or little scrutiny they apply to that impression.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
Ok. Anti-federalists we be. It's not a negative thing.. Glock you deny that we are right, do you also deny that the system is in trouble, or
do you only care that inertia is too much for you to overcome, so you go along with the status quo programme?
Here's some red meat for the status quo crowd. I am sure you normal folks can smell crazy all over him.
The straight line seems bent. - Lao Zi
"Ok. Anti-federalists we be." Admitting it is the first step.
"It's not a negative thing.." It is however, an outdated and contradictory one for a self-proclaimed Constitutionalist to be.
"Glock you deny that we are right, do you also deny that the system is in trouble..." The system is always in trouble. Eternal vigilance, remember?
"...or do you only care that inertia is too much for you to overcome, so you go along with the status quo programme?" If you honestly believe that my motivation or ideology is based on or around some sort of 'status quo' then you either haven't been paying attention or your addiction to the 'us verus them' mentality is seriously distorting your perceptions. As far as any systemic inertia, it's rare for any one person to overcome it beyond their own individual rebellions. I'm quite content to do what I can without any delusions of grandeur that I will be 'the one' who revolutionizes it all. If a grander opportunity presents itself, so be it, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that improbable scenario.
And an unrelated and superfluous video, just to keep the rhythm.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
"I love Rick N' Rolled, put another dime in the juke box, baybee..."